Category: News

This summer, the Centre for Programmable Biological Matter launched Biomeccano, its first protein design competition, bringing together PhD students from across Durham University’s Department of Biosciences to tackle a real-world biological challenge. Nineteen PhD students from ten research groups formed four teams, with participants challenged to design an artificial protein binder targeting trypanothione reductase, a…
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The Centre for Programmable Biological Matter at Durham University played host to Bionano 2026 on 1st and 2nd September. The conference was a significant event for researchers working in the field of bionanotech, and its various applications. The theme for this year’s Bionano conference was ‘Designing and building functional nanostructures from biological molecules and closely…
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A new review article published in ACS Nano by a research team at the Durham’s Centre for Programmable Biological matter (CPBM) maps the rapidly advancing toolkit that could help scientists design and build artificial biological nanostructures — tiny systems made from the same kinds of molecules that constitute life itself. The review, “Tools For Building…
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Earlier this year, the group of researchers at the Centre for Programmable Biological Matter working on RNA attended the annual RNA UK conference hosted in Windermere. Dr. Ting-Yu Lin delivered a fantastic talk on the context-dependent effects of pseudouridylation on tRNA structural integrity and stability. CPBM PhD students Yasmin and Ethan, and our visiting student…
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On 8th October the CPBM welcomed Professor Jamie Blaza from the University of York to give a seminar and a workshop based on his work with cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM). Jamie’s seminar on “Using Cryo-EM and symmetry expansion to understand how Rubisco is bound together to accelerate carbon fixation” drew a full house and prompted lots…
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